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Page 6:Symphony of the Night
Castlevania: Symphony of The Night (Playstation, 1997) Konami wanted to make a direct sequal to Circle of Energy. They came up with this game, this game would be one of the most notable of the entire series. Story About 5 years after the events of Circle of Energy and Richter Belmont is pronounced missing. Marie Renard sets on a journey to find him. At the same time, Count Dracula's son Alucard awakens and sets off to his father's castle as the evil wizard Shaft is now preparing for his father's resurrection. Gameplay This game was versatile in gameplay. It borrows some elements from Metroid which you're in a huge place with many rooms to explore, and it also has some RPG elements which means Alucard builds up levels and even 4 attributes. Strength: Determines the damage of Alucard's attacks. Defense: Determines on how much damage Alucard can receive. Intelligence: Determines on how fast his mind points can be restored. Luck: Determines on the likeliness of items appearing after defeating enemies. Alucard can also obtain powers that can allow him to transform into either a bat, a wolf or mist. There's also elements of an action adventure similar to The Legend of Zelda where you can't access a certain area unless you have completed a certain task or have a certain item. The game also allows you to complete the game in any way. You face Richter at some point in the game, you can either defeat him outright, or use a certain item to save him. This also creates multiple endings for this game as well. After completing the game, you can play the game again as Ritcher to play the game old-school. Reception Though, this game didn't sell well. But for fans of the franchise this is their answer to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time with it's voice acting and it's gameplay. This gameplay will set the standard for many Castlevania games in the future. Trivia * The game makes several references to previous Castlevania games. ** When Maria asks Alucard about Richter, Alucard than asks Maria if she knows a Belmont and a speech bubble with an 8-bit Trevor from Dracula's Curse appears by Alucard. There's also 3 bosses Alucard faces and are evil versions of Grant, Sypha and Trevor. ** In the beginning of the game (after the Grim Reaper takes all of Alucard's weapons away) once you make your way to the Alchemy Labs and then return to the same room where Alcard first encounters the Grim Reaper, you'll face Slogra and Gaibon: the 2 bosses you face in Super Castlevania 4 ** Alucard also collects Dracula's body parts (The Rib, The Heart, The Eyeball, The Nail and the Ring) from Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest ** The Clock Tower is the same stage from Castlevania: Circle of Energy, only slightly altered. * There's a confessional booth in the castle. Once Alucard sits in front of it, he'll confess his bad deeds. He can also hear a woman's voice if he sits behind the booth. * An optional boss Alucard faces is Galamoth from the Kid Dracula series of games. * Several things that can be accessed by a Game Enhancer. ** In the debug version of this game you'll get a message (in Japanese) saying that the year was quite hard for whoever recorded this message. ** There are several small familiar characters that were in the Beta version of the game, but were dropped but can still be accessed. * There are notable differences between the game on the PlayStation and the Sega Saturn. ** In the Sega Saturn version, you fight Maria. There's also an underground garden which is somewhat visible in the PlayStation version but only accessible through a Game Enhancer. * Like in Castlevania: Circle of Energy. If you place the game disk into an audio CD player, there will be a forward message by Alucard telling you about the first track being game data and not to play it, but insists that you won't listen. * When Alucard sits ina chair and left there for a while, he'll fall asleep. When he has a fiary familiar, he'll sit and rest on his shoulder, only to stumble when Alucard gets up. * There are unused sound clips in this game, one of them pointing to a scrapped alternate ending where Maria stops Alucard from killing Richter, but is under the influence of Shaft, and Alucard then is overwhelmed with grief over the deaths of both Richter and Maria.